When will the insanity end?

Since my last regular monthly column in May I have learned
how easy it is to tune out the politics of Washington and Lansing. Their antics
drive us crazy. I can no longer stay silent however.

It has been
said that insanity is repeating the same activity and expecting different
results. The right wing has been leading us on a “borrow and spend” policy
since it was initiated by President Ronald Reagan in 1981. The fruits of that
policy are now oppressing us. Yet the Republicans repeat the same old lines: 1)
taxes are evil and must be cut at all costs, 2) government is too large and
must be made smaller regardless of consequences, and 3) the national debt is
out of control. They fail to admit they created the spending and national debt
by their tax policies.

Taxes and jobs

The Bush
tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 gave little to the average American but millionaires
are paying 25% less today than ten years ago. In 2009 nearly 1500 millionaires
paid no income tax at all. While these tax cuts were promoted as job creating,
they actually cost 3 million jobs by 2008. The GOP still talks of tax cuts as
the panacea for job creation but since the extension of the tax cuts in late
2010 another 1.9 million jobs have been lost even though Republicans campaigned
on the slogan “more jobs” and have done nothing to provide jobs.

They say they want to cut corporate
taxes, because our high tax rates make American businesses uncompetitive in the
world market. How then could oil companies have the highest profits of any
company in the world at a time of economic crisis? How could General Electric
have profits of $14.2 billion in 2010 and pay no income tax?

Smaller government

The right
wing wants to end Social Security because, as an economist on CNN on August 6
said, the greatest cause of federal deficits is the Social Security and
Medicare payments. Social Security payments are made from a trust fund that was
created by all the Social Security (FICA) taxes we have paid since the 1930’s.
There is more in the fund than the payments going out. This statement by the
economist was an outright lie or ignorance at best. To end Social Security
would be the greatest breach of government trust in our history.

Republican spending cuts do not
include ending corporate welfare however. When the Democrats proposed ending
subsidies to oil companies, the GOP defeated this bill because they agreed with
oil company executives who characterized the cuts as a tax increase, even
though the big five oil companies had $35.4 billion in profits in the second
quarter 2011.

The
Republican government spending cuts are “job-killing” measures. It is estimated
that if the Republicans get their way more than 5 million jobs will be lost by
the end of 2012.

National debt

The
national debt increased from $1 trillion in 1981 when Reagan became president
to $10.6 trillion in 2008 at the end of the George W. Bush presidency. Only $1
trillion of that $9.6 trillion increase was under the Democrat Bill Clinton. In
fact Clinton
had a balanced budget and was paying down the debt when he left office in 2001.

The big increase in the debt was
the result of President George W. Bush’s policies. The tax cuts cost $1.6 trillion
in lost revenue and created additional interest costs of $1.4 trillion. The
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
cost $1.3 trillion. The 2003 creation of Medicare's prescription drug benefit
added $300 billion and the 2008 financial industry bailout added $200 billion.

The
government has always been a partner with the business world. This is
especially true during difficult economic times. This latest recession is no
exception. The Obama economic stimulus package added $800 billion and the 2010
compromise tax cutsadded $400 billion.
The staggering national debt is not an Obama creation.

The latest
debacle created by the right wing is the draconian compromise regarding
increasing the debt limit. Even the conservative icons, the US Chamber of
Commerce and Standard and Poor’s, criticized the GOP for not allowing tax
increases on the table.

President
Obama should have held the line in late 2010 and allowed the tax cuts of Bush
to end. And now in this current debacle he should have vetoed any bill to increase
the debt ceiling, which had draconian spending cuts without tax increases. We
would be far better off today if he had done that. but the bulk of the
blamerests on the shoulders of the GOP
for their intransigence and rigid ideology.

Come the next election, we need new
leaders to rebuild the American dream that is being destroyed by the right wing
politicians and their supporters.

Responses:

9/4/11

Yourarticle about
how right wing has cost us to be in debt I think is missing one major thing.
They have created the deficit deliberately so they could force their idealology
of eliminating entitlement programs to come to bear. Think about that. Are the
right wing capable of deliberately causing this to con the people into
believing it's the democrats fault. Your damn right they are. And it all started
with their savior Reagan. He did show them the way of cutting taxes to create a
deficit and also showed them Union busting.
Sound familiar. The right wing are so power hungry that can't see the damage
they are doing to the economy and this country. I have been predicting for
years that this country is headed for another civil war. I know that is more
and more a possibillity I will probably live to see it happen. So much for the United States
being the greatest country in the world.